Uighur academic Rahile Dawut sentenced to life in prison

2 mins

With our correspondent in China, Stéphane Lagarde

“ Disappeared » in 2017, Rahile Dawut was sentenced to life imprisonment a year later during a closed-door trial for “separatism”. His sentence was recently confirmed on appeal, said the American foundation of human rights Dui Hua. “ This conviction is a cruel tragedy, a great loss for the Uyghur people and all those who cherish academic freedom », writes the director of the NGO.

Rahile Dawut is not the first Uighur intellectual figure to be sentenced to life in prison. In September 2014, nine years ago, Ilham Tohti economist and professor at the Central Minority University in Beijing suffered the same sentence. Their children haven’t seen it again since 2017. Rahile Dawut’s daughter, Akida Pulat, confided her distress to Wall Street Journal from Seattle where she resides. “ I am devastated. The idea of ​​not seeing her for the rest of my life is unimaginable », she fears.

Dozens of missing

These moderate voices have in common that they defend the culture of an ethnic minority formerly protected in China. Rahile Dawut’s research, like the work of Ilham Tohti, has long been financed by the Chinese state. Both knew the red lines and never commented on politics publicly. Their only “crime” is to have, for one, co-founded the Uighurbiz site, and for the other, the Center for Research on Ethnic Minorities within the University of Xinjiang. This defense of Uyghur folklore and culture is considered by the Chinese authorities, within the framework of the repression of the Muslim and Turkish-speaking minority, as “ separatism ” and an ” state endangerment “.

According to human rights associations, dozens of academics, businessmen, artists and members of the Uyghur elite have disappeared or been imprisoned in recent years in China.

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